Patrick Byrnes South Korean, b. Lita Cabellut Spanish, b. Steve Caldwell British , stevecaldwell. Gottfried Helnwein German, b. Included in his extensive collection are a large number of self-portraits and his family of children.
Yunior Hurtado Cuban, b. Yasunari Ikenaga Japanese, b. She has no formal art training but does have a pilot's licence, which enables her to fly her Piper Super Cub from her studio in Hampshire to Newmarket and Goodwood for race days. Her favourite thing is capturing horses in motion, and her biggest challenge is 'when a horse is on its last legs and their owner asks you to recreate its glory days. You've got to use a lot of artistic licence. She's drawn Lady Bamford's grandchildren and says the best age for a portrait is between three and seven: 'A magical age of sweetness, before they lose their curls and baby teeth.
The observant among you may have noticed that almost all of our featured artists trained at the Charles H Cecil Studios. So who, or what, is Charles H Cecil? Well, it's an art school in Florence that is regarded as one of the top places in the world to learn how to paint and draw from life. Started in by the American painter and art historian Charles H Cecil, it is situated in a beautiful old church that was converted into a studio in the 19th century.
But please don't call it a school - it's an atelier, harking back to the Renaissance tradition of a 'master' teaching a small group of pupils. There are only 30 students and the USP of the atelier is its focus on traditional painting techniques - students grind their own paints and learn the sight-size method painting an object on the same scale as it appears to the artist.
The other USP is that it is full of beautiful, smart, slightly whimsical young people. Best for old school James Hayes. Best for children Jemma Phipps. His success as the leading North European portrait painter of his age, rested on his keen observation, his life-like portrayals none of his subjects appear stiff or artificial , and his unique ability to convey the majestic dignity of his sitter, albeit with occasional flattery.
Van Dyck was also a skilled etcher, who produced a series of large scale portrait etchings of famous contemporaries. The greatest portrait painter of the 16th century Northern Renaissance , the talented Hans Holbein eventually settled in London at the age of 29, where he specialized in painting portraits of the Tudor Royal Court, and the merchants of the continental Hanseatic League. Characterized by meticulous attention to detail, together with a combination of clinical detachment and perceptive characterization, Holbein's masterpieces include portraits of the astronomer Nikolaus Kratzer , Henry VIII , The Ambassadors , The Merchant Georg Gisze , Erasmus of Rotterdam.
The Gisze picture, in particular, illustrates Holbein's fusion of Renaissance simple grandeur with Northern European detail: the latter exemplified by the still-life quality of the objects and items depicted. Holbein also took up miniature portrait painting , becoming one of the best miniaturists based in England. In a curious if unintentional confirmation of John Singer Sargent 's growing stature as arguably the greatest portrait painter of the modern era, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art at a recent exhibition juxtaposed the works of Velazquez with those of some of his admirers, including Edouard Manet and Sargent.
While the Frenchman's paintings were made to look quite weak in comparison, those of the American retained all their robustness and style. Sargent's acknowledged masterpiece is Portrait of Madame X , painted in Paris when he was Aside from exemplifying his unsurpassed hand-eye coordination and his classical "au premier coup" technique one precise stroke of the brush, no reworking , its daring composition gives this controversial work intense value and interest.
His quite different and complex group portrait The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is a masterful mixture of classical form and Impressionist brushwork, and ranks as one of the greatest Impressionist portraits.
A mere 37 when he died, Raphael is traditionally considered to be the finest painter of the High Renaissance. In addition, he was regarded as the leading portraitist of the Renaissance in Rome. His contribution to the art of portrait painting includes his Madonna portraits, and at least two individual masterpieces: "Portrait of Baldassar Castiglione" and "Portrait of Pope Leo X".
Whereas the Madonna portraits had brought the classical triangular composition to its culmination, that of Baldassar Castiglione - the first great portrait of the Italian Renaissance - is based on circular forms.
The papal work is more complex: Leo is sitting, framed by the presence of two cardinals in the background, and each man is looking in a different direction. The effect is unsettling, and generates a significant degree of underlying tension. The leading representative of Flemish painting , active fifty years before Leonardo and some two hundred years before Rembrandt and Velazquez, Jan Van Eyck pioneered the use of oils, using them to create a number of outstanding true-to-life portraits.
His most famous work is probably the double-portrait "The Arnolfini Wedding", a fiercely complex picture replete with symbols and clues of hidden meanings. Other portrait masterpieces include "Man in a Red Turban", supposedly a self-portrait, which exemplifies the brilliance and luminance of van Eyck's oils, and the figures of Adam and Eve from the Ghent Altarpiece , two of the earliest and most naturalistic nudes.
Considering the antiquity of these works they are surely evidence of a remarkable talent. Any list of the world's best portrait painters must surely include Velazquez among its number. One of the very greatest artists produced by Spain, ranking alongside El Greco , Goya and Picasso , Velazquez produced at least two unforgettable masterpieces: "Portrait of Pope Innocent X" and the group portrait " Las Meninas ".
The former perfectly captures the penetrating gaze of a deeply ambitious man, while the latter is a stunningly complex portrayal of Margarita, daughter of Phillip IV, and her attendants, which weaves illusion with reality. Even today, portraits are vectors of societal messages, sometimes political or historical, and often tend towards the universality of feeling. Discover 15 international artists working brilliantly and with diversity on this timeless and constantly evolving genre!
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